DENVER, CO – MAY 18: Carlos Gonzalez #5 of the Colorado Rockies breaks his bat enroute to an RBI single during the seventh inning against the San Diego Padres at Coors Field on May 18, 2014 in Denver, Colorado. The Rockies defeated the Padres 8-6 in 10 innings.

When Carlos Gonzalez walks to home plate at Coors Field, the music rocks to a Latin beat, but all the salsa has gone silent in his cold bat. Want to know the Rockies’ biggest problem? It’s not pitching. It’s the fact No. 5 in a Colorado uniform hasn’t been CarGo for more than a month.

“I try to stay tough, but this is definitely a tough time for me,” Gonzalez told me Tuesday.

Where does Gonzalez go from here? A trip to the disabled list not only seems likely but necessary.

“Yes, it’s possible. It’s definitely possible,” Gonzalez said. “I really don’t know what to do right now. It’s really hard. It’s even harder for me to come out of the game over and over again. … It’s frustrating.”

Is it the nagging tendinitis in his left knee? Is it a perplexing ailment to his left index finger? With CarGo this season, it’s a little bit of everything, and it is all bad news for the Rockies. After being dropped to fifth in the batting order against Arizona, Gonzalez was removed from the game in the sixth inning due to inflammation in his finger. Colorado lost for the fifth straight time, falling 4-2 to the Diamondbacks.

“It’s tough to lie to yourself. I try to lie to myself to keep believing I feel good, when I’m not feeling good,” Gonzalez said. “I try to tell myself: ‘Go out there, compete and not worry about the pain.’ But it’s hard.”

As hard as it would be for Colorado manager Walt Weiss to carry a lineup card without Gonzalez to home plate on a daily basis, it is time to consider shutting down CarGo with a trip to the disabled list to let him heal. Corey Dickerson, batting .352 in 20 starts, provides a legitimate alternative in left field.

Gonzalez is mired in a 2-for-22 slump, and he is hitting .255 for the season on pure grit. The batting average is depressing, but here is what is disturbing: During the past five weeks, Gonzalez has produced only eight extra-base hits.

“It’s tough for me not to be able to help the team offensively,” said Gonzalez, unblinking in the face of self-doubt. But the electric smile that is CarGo’s trademark has been erased from his face.

That’s not CarGo. The five-tool ability of one of baseball’s 20 most physically gifted players has been reduced to rusty pliers.

Yes, 23-year-old pitching prospect Eddie Butler has been belatedly summoned from the farm to halt the head-spinning queasiness of Colorado’s reeling rotation, with his first major-league start scheduled Friday against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Well, that’s nice. Better late than never. The Rockies desperately need a live arm to restore a little faith in a Colorado clubhouse starting to feel the strain of a good-hit/no-pitch roster. Can the Butler do it?

He looked ready to travel north with the big club after spring training, and nothing about his 2.49 earned-run average or 1.18 WHIP for Double-A Tulsa would dissuade me from thinking Butler should have replaced Franklin Morales in the rotation before the team suffered through its recent 2-7 road trip.

But the bigger question: Is CarGo hurting so badly he’s hurting the Rockies by bravely playing through injuries that have turned his bat to overcooked fettuccine?

It has become obvious opposing pitchers have stopped respecting Gonzalez’s ability to cover the outer half of the plate. His swing is not right because CarGo’s body is not right. More than once during batting practice before the series against Arizona began, Gonzalez groaned with the results of his swing.

“I’m not going to complain about it. I know it’s easy to point at things like, ‘Oh, my knee hurts or my finger hurts.’ I am having discomfort. But I’ve told myself since spring training: ‘It doesn’t matter what my numbers are, I want to see the results of the team,’ ” Gonzalez said.

“It’s easy to control things when you’re hitting .350 and you have big numbers on the board. This is hard, when you are hitting .250. It’s hard to lead when things are going bad and you feel like maybe I’m not supposed to play, because I’m not doing anything for the team. But what I want to do is show up every day and show the people you’re playing hard and busting your (butt) every day.”

With his bold prediction of 90 wins in 2014, Rockies owner Dick Monfort did offer the caveat that his team had to stay healthy.

A year ago, a banged-up Gonzalez could provide a meager 37 at-bats after the all-star break.

MONTREAL — It’s a big deal to play or coach hockey in Montreal and Toronto, and for first-year Avalanche coach Jared Bednar, it’s bound to be extra special because it will be his first time in those historic Original Six markets. Indeed, the Canadian native from Yorkton, Saskatchewan, has never been to the Bell Centre or Air Canada Centre — where...

Shortly before the season began, Holmes, who had been dealing with a nagging hip since September, finally went in to get an X-ray to get the injury addressed. That X-ray revealed a mass on his hip, and following a biopsy, doctors diagnosed Holmes with Osteosarcoma.